


Burn Scars

by Pomfry



Category: Batman (Comics), Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bruce Wayne is a Good Dad, Don't fuck with his kids is the lesson here, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Offically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-01-30 21:55:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12662202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pomfry/pseuds/Pomfry
Summary: Damian has lasting effects from his childhood. It's inevitable, really, and some are obvious and some aren't.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I might make this into a series.

“How is Robin so well trained at his age,” Diana asks with a frown as she watches Damian spar with Tim. “None of the other Robins were like this when they first started out.”

Bruce blinks, waving off Damian’s glance as his son jumps back from the staff aimed for his stomach. “What do you mean?”

“I _mean,”_ Diana says, looking at him, “that it takes _years_ of practice, blood, sweat, and tears to get to his level of skill. How is he like this?”

Bruce clenches his fists at the thought, the Kevlar wrinkling under the sound of Damian shouting insults at Tim. Diana’s staring at him, and Bruce realizes that his teeth are grit in anger and his eyes narrowed.

Bruce doesn’t particularly want to talk about Damian’s childhood.

Hal wanders over with Barry beside him, a burger in one hand and a tray holding drinks emitting from his ring. “We talking about the brat,” he asks, and grins at Bruce’s glare.

“Yes,” Diana replies, and turns back to the spar, Damian holding his sword to Tim’s neck with a smile that makes Bruce’s instincts flare.

 _Your kid is going to do something,_ they sing, and Bruce whistles sharply, making Damian pout and sheath his sword.

“I was just wondering why Robin is so muscular and strong,” Diana tells the pair, and Hal makes a noise of confirmation, Barry scratching the back of his neck in embarrassment

“I’ve been kinda wondering the same thing,” he says sheepishly, and Hal nods, taking a quick sip of his soda.

Bruce blanks out.

Damian’s scars are consistent with League training, and Bruce has traveled enough to know what the other scars mean.

(Damian sometimes can’t stand. The bottom of his feet hurt too much. He can’t stand, can barely move his toes without starting to flinch, and a flinch for Damian is bursting into tears and screaming for a normal child. But Damian pushes through it, and Bruce has checked the bottom of his feet.

Burn scars. Made from walking on coals without training. 

Bruce makes him sit down those days.)

Bruce doesn’t like talking about Damian’s childhood. For more reasons than one.

They’re staring at him, Bruce realizes absently, but he doesn’t care. Can’t care, really, because his son was put through that at such a young age, the torture under the guise of training, makes him rage and want to hurt something, because Damian shouldn’t have been put through that.

Bruce breathes in through his nose, and breathes out from the mouth, and he’s still not answering Diana. Or Hal. Or Barry.

He doesn’t give a fuck, not when Damian tugs at his hand with a, “Come on, Father. You promised to let me help for cases,” and leads him away, leaving his teammates to blink after them.

 _Let them wonder,_ Bruce thinks, and tightens his grip on Damian’s hand.

It’s family business, anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How, exactly, Bruce found out about the scars.

Damian’s has been acting off today.  
  
It’s not really especially noticeable, and Bruce definitely wouldn’t notice if he didn’t live with him. But he does, so he notices that when Damian stands, he flinches. It’s just a twitch of a muscle on his face, barely there in all honesty, but it’s _there._

Bruce frowns and narrows his eyes as Damian bits his lip while he’s slowly lacing up his boots, hands shaking as he ties the red shoelaces.

It’s his feet. It has to be his feet.

So Bruce tugs off his cowl, walks over to his son, and kneels in front of him.

“Father?” Damian blinks in surprise as Bruce carefully takes off the boots and gently tugs off his socks. “What are you doing?”

Bruce doesn’t look up. “You’ve been acting off today. I wanted to see why.”

Damian’s face changes into one of dread. “I’m sorry,” he says, rushing the words out, and Bruce raises his head. “I’m sorry, I’ll try to-” Bruce presses down on the bottom of his foot, and Damian yelps, pushing back desperately, eyes suddenly filling with tears.

Bruce stands, staring down at the wrinkled, light pink, and raised skin on the bottom of his son’s feet.

 _Burn scars,_ his mind provides, and Bruce rejects it with everything he has, because _he’s seen this before._

These are _old scars,_ ones made from six to seven years ago, and Bruce doesn’t want to do the math, doesn’t want to realize just how young Damian was when he got these.

Damian’s still shaking.

Bruce leans down and picks his son up, holding him so his feet don’t touch anything.

Bruce knows _exactly_ how old Damian was when he got these scars, and he knows _exactly_ how he got them.

He wishes that he didn’t.


	3. Chapter 3

When Bruce first meets Damian, first meets his  _son,_ Damian is ten and too small and holding a katana to his throat, something horrible and hurting lurking behind the bloodthirsty grin. Bruce doesn't recognize it, doesn't know that Damian had been trained since he was a infant, but at that moment, Bruce can only focus on the little scars on Damian's face.

 _"_ Hello, Father," Damian sneers. "I thought you'd be taller."

Bruce stares at the little scars on his sons face, and deep inside a rage sparks to life, the dragon that lurks in his soul, that protects what is  _his,_ wakes up and snarls, and Bruce clenches his fists.

No son of his, no  _child_ should have scars on their face that reveals more than Damian likely knows.

Talia comes up from behind and Bruce carefully doesn't bare his teeth at her because that would be telling. She smiles, still, smiles slow and with lips painted the same shade as blood as she places a feather light on Damian's shoulder. Damian - their  _son,_ and how could she do this to him - leans into it with a desperation Bruce only sees with neglected children.

Bruce stays silent and reaches out with his heart and claims Damian as his own.

He smiles, all predator, at Talia, at the mother of his son that caused him to have those little white scars on his face, and Talia takes a step back.

 _Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,_ Bruce thinks as Damian gathers his things, _but does it say anything about a father?_

\--

Damian, not surprisingly, doesn't react well to the change in environment. He screams and rants and fights, and Bruce watches him with solemn eyes. Damian only knows how to fight, and it makes him more angry than he has been in years.

 _Wild child,_ the media whispers, forever like a poison in public ears,  _what a wild child he is. He doesn't deserve what he has._

Bruce smiles more brilliantly at the cameras and hold Damian in place, because his son is a wild child. He grew up in the desert with little comfort given and to get kindness he had to be brutal. Bruce puts make up on his son's face before they go out to hide his scars, and Damian wears clothes that conceal everything.

\--

"Ungrateful brat," spits a business man at a gala after Damian had nearly taken his hand off for touching him. "Doesn't know what he has."

Damian knows _ex_ _actly_ what he has been given, and the wounded look on his face shows it.

Bruce calls his son over and gives him a glass of grape juice and proceeds to buy the man's company with his phone. Damian's feet dangle off of his chair as he sips at his juice, eyes wandering the room and searching for exits like he always does when given a moments peace, and Bruce places a hand on his head. Damian looks up at him, scrunches his nose, and looks back at the crowds.

Bruce tries not to notice how he sat up more to get more contact.

\--

"Oh, Brucie," simpers a model that's Bruce's girlfriend for the week, fluttering her fake eyelashes at him as she pouts. "I'm sorry your son is such...such a. Well, you know."

Damian glances up from his sketchbook, eyes wary and afraid and wounded, and Bruce looks down at her. She's fake, all plastic and shallow waters, and Bruce thinks that she'll never compare to his son.

"I don't know," he says icily, smile showing too much teeth, and she laughs a little, leaning into him.

"You know," she says dismissively, waving off Bruce's youngest son like he's a pest, and Damian falters in a stroke of a pencil. "An immigrant."

Bruce's smile dies, and those around him scamper away.

"Ma'am," he says, and she starts a little at his dark tone. "I'm afraid you have to leave."

Damian watches, looking a little in awe, as she gasps, raising a delicate hand to cover her ruby red lips. "Well," she bustles, "why do I?"

Bruce doesn't say anything and lets Alfred lead her out. Damian gets up, all of ten years old and tiny, and walks over to him, hand tangled in Titus' fur.

"Father," he says, uncertain, and Bruce smiles at him. It's different than the other ones, and Damian relaxes a bit before climbing into the seat beside him and finishing his drawing.

The party goes on around them and Bruce doesn't move for the rest of the night.

\--

Bruce doesn't forget about Damian's scars, and once he looks at them, he knows what caused them.

A sword to the cheek, a knife in his mouth, burns from fire. So many more reasons, and Bruce gets to his feet, feeling sick and  _furious_ in a way that makes it burn cold, and pulls Damian into a hug.

Damian struggles something fierce, but Bruce simply holds one and he eventually just...stops.

\--

When Damian gets resurrected, he has a scar on his chest and the back and he flinches every time he sees it, something dark and heavy and sad rising as he touches it, traces the white skin with something like bitterness.

Bruce gathers his family and tells them, under no uncertain terms, that they are not to mention the scar. None of them disagree.

Damian doesn't notice, but he wears more undershirts to hide it.

Damian has more scars than Bruce thought possible, and Ra's may be a demon, but Bruce is a  _dragon._

Nothing is more dangerous, Bruce thinks with malicious glee in his veins as he  _destroys_ Ra's completely, leaves him at his feet with horror as he watches what he spent his entire life build burn to the ground, than a dragon enraged.

Bruce stares Ra's down coldly, wondering, wondering if he should throw him into the river, when Talia appears, eyes wide and panicked, and she stops when she sees Bruce.

"What did you do," she breathes, watching as her home starts to crumble.

"I just protected what is mine," he says. "You hurt my son."

"He is  _my son too,"_ Talia shrieks, and Bruce scoffs.

Damian is at home, curled around his dog with his cat watching over him as he sleeps with scars littering his body, and something  _clicks._

"No," he says, just as cold and ruthless as ever, "he's not."

Talia falls to her knees, and Bruce goes home to his son.

He doesn't kill but sometimes living is worse than dying. Bruce knows this intimately.

Clark would call this mercy, but it's not. It's torture. Their lives are gone and they know that Bruce won't let them near Damian.

Bruce's lips lift into a cruel smile. That's what they get for hurting his son.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always loved and brighten up my day and are saved in my Gmail.
> 
> Also! Here's my [Tumblr.](http://nikescaret.tumblr.com) Come visit and chat with me if you want!


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